June 29

The desire of all nations shall come.—Hagg. ii. 7.

THIS prophecy evidently relates to the Redeemer: to no other person was it ever applicable. In Jesus there are ample reasons why all nations should thus desire him. The announcement of the woman's seed to bruise the serpent's head excited in our first parents an ardent desire for his appearance; and hence when Cain was born, Eve seems to have imagined that the prophecy was now realized, hence she exclaimed, "I have gotten a man—the Lord." To Abraham, afterwards, the promise was renewed, and he looked forward by faith and saw Christ's day, and was glad. Prophets and kings were alike expectants of the appearance of the illustrious Messiah, and he was the burden of prophecy and the substance of promises for thousands of years. At the time of Christ's birth the expectation became more intense and general: there was now universal peace throughout the mighty Roman empire, and the Jewish dispensation seemed laden with years, waiting only to be superseded by another œconomy. Philosophers of all nations and countries had been trying numberless expedients to stem the torrents of crime and wretchedness which seemed to overspread the world; but every scheme failed, and every plan proved abortive: hence the depth of their misery and the helplessness of their condition seemed to cause nature itself to groan after some deliverer from this bondage of corruption. At length Jesus did appear; and his doctrines, and his precepts, and the ordinances and the blessings which he communicated, were all of such a character as to render him worthy of universal acceptation, and to show all men that his religion was eminently adapted to be the religion of the whole world.